Friday, October 27, 2017

I'm very pleased to anounce that my novella Quivira, co-written with Jonathan C. Gillespie, has been accepted for publication by The Society of Misfit Stories, an imprint of Bards & Sages magazine that specialises in long stories that are the wrong length for most magazines.

This is my longest story published to date, at 16,000 words. Jonathan and I wrote alternating sections from two different character's points of view, one in the style of a science ficiton story and one presented as s fantasy story. You'll have to read it to see how that makes any sense.

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Probably in common with a lot of the audience who have seen the 2017 live action film Ghost In The Shell starring Scarlett Johansson, I was aware that the story originated as a Japanese anime title, but otherwise I had no idea about its background. In fact, my knowledge of the genre is rather paltry and this became evident as I read through Andrew Osmond’s fascinating history of the film.

Friday, October 20, 2017

The partly-thawed Antarctic Peninsula seems like an obvious place to set a novel in a globally-warmed future, but it’s never crossed my mind and I can’t say I’ve come across it in any other book before. Paul McAuley describes a wondrous wilderness of retreating glaciers, hardy frontiersmen, burgeoning greenery and blossoming towns that are working their way inward from the tip of the peninsula. It’s a magnificent setting for a tale of survival, human intrusion into nature and the fight against repeating history’s mistakes.

Monday, October 16, 2017

After the phenomenal Ancillary trilogy, how could Ann Leckie hope to live up to expectations with Provenance? It’s a tough job but she does it with style, giving us a tale that is related to the other three books and set in the same universe as her Radchaai Empire, but is different enough to stand on its own and exude a distinct charm that does not rely on its predecessors.

Sunday, October 01, 2017

My collaborative story SomethingOn Your Mind?, co-written with 8 other authors, is now on-line at Kaleidotrope. This is my third blind collaboration set aboard the orbital habitat Astropolis. I gave the other authors the setting and asked them to write a short scene with their own character but with no idea of the overall plot and I then stitched all the sections together into an whole story.